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spread out the tiny fingers of her hand like a fan, then curled them up again. He already knew that he would love her all his life, no matter what happened.

 
    On Saturday morning, as Knutas took the turnoff to Lickershamn, he heaved a sigh of relief. A weekend at the summer house was just what he needed after spending the whole week sweating in overcrowded Visby.
    Their summer place was no more than fifteen miles from the city, yet out there he felt as if his daily life back home were far away. On the way into Lickershamn proper was an area of erosional rock remnants called rauks where he usually stopped. There were a dozen large rauks and a number of smaller ones. Some were eighteen to twenty feet high, and a number were covered with ivy, the official plant of Gotland. An informational sign posted by the county commission explained that these rauks had been formed by the Littorine Sea seven thousand years ago. Knutas was fascinated by the rauks, which looked like some sort of clumsily shaped stone sculptures. The story of their origin was quite interesting, too.
    The Gotland bedrock was largely made up of coral reefs that were created in a tropical sea four hundred million years ago. Between the reefs were layers of limestone , and when the ice that covered Gotland during the last ice age retreated ten thousand years ago, uplift began to occur. Where land and sea met, the waves eroded the bedrock. The reefs withstood the wear and tear of the waves better than the various kinds of rock surrounding them, so that was what remained as isolated stone pillars.
    The most impressive rauk was called the Virgin, and it towered up from a plateau eighty-five feet above the sea, right next to the inlet forming the harbor. With its height of forty feet, the Virgin was Gotland’s tallest rauk, and for that reason it had become the symbol of Lickershamn. It was a peaceful area with a cluster of houses around the little bay and two docks jutting out into the sea where fishing boats and pleasure craft were moored.
    The family’s summer place, half a mile away, was a two-story house made of gray-plastered limestone with the window frames, doorframes, and other trim painted burgundy. The surrounding landscape was barren, with stunted and windblown pine trees and juniper bushes. The property was enclosed by a stone fence. There were plenty of stones on this side of Gotland. The stretch of land from Lummelunda all the way up to Fårösund in the north was called the Stone Coast.
    Petra and Nils had reluctantly agreed to come along. Knutas had enticed them by promising they would go out in the boat to fish that evening. Lina got out of the car and let out a delighted shout.
    “Oh, how lovely,” she said, taking in a deep breath. “Feel the air. Look at the sea.”
    They all helped to bring in the bags of food. Lina and the children were eager to go down to the beach and swim, but Knutas chose to stay behind and mow the grass, even though the summer had been so dry that it was hardly necessary.
    At home in the city, Lina was usually the one who took care of the yard. The difference was that out here in the country he was left in peace. It was calm and quiet, with no neighbors to disturb him. He opened the door to the tool shed, and musty air came billowing out. He dragged out the cumbersome lawn mower and filled it with gasoline. It started up nicely after two tries.
    He enjoyed making one lap after another, listening to the clattering of the mower and not thinking about anything in particular. Everyone heard the racket and refrained from bothering him while he was at it. That was why he didn’t hurry. He mowed the whole lawn with great care.
    The house stood off by itself; there were no neighbors within sight. Outside the fence at the back there was a protected beach cove that was used only by his family, a few neighbors, and occasionally a tourist who had gone astray. The large beach near Lickershamn was far enough away so that they weren’t disturbed by any other swimmers, yet it was close enough that the children could walk there on their own if they liked. Knutas thought it was a perfect location.
    By the time he was done, his shirt was soaked with sweat, even though the task really didn’t require any great physical strength; the lawn mower practically ran itself.
    He quickly changed into bathing trunks, grabbed a towel, and went down to the beach, where his family’s towels and bathrobes were piled up in a heap. He